
The Night I Sleep in the Nursery
I hear the yellow walls whispering. My friend's baby has not arrived alive. I place my guest towel on the edge of that baby's crib, see a white orb floating in the room. I press my face into a pillow, try to unsee a howling woman thrust a sleeping child onto paper sheets, sink in the scent of lavender and grief, my own grief left by the door like an umbrella wet from the rain. The body remembers: I saved eggs like diamonds, baked stars with apricots & sugar dusted my man's lips. I pictured us on a green lawn. Nothing would stick; the ovary ripened, but only some days the soil bears. Sometimes the egg speaks: does not approve. He left me at dawn & the body answered: better the clots on the floor than our ghost living. I do not compare how lightning strikes from the sky's throat, how a woman jolts from the shock of death, how I scrubbed my blood off marble tiles, convulsing, as if a spirit hatched out of my open jaw. I do not say, I saw the rocking chair moving from nobody's weight. Only the chair, rocking. Arms empty, its lap wide open, like a woman's biggest wound.
1 reply on “The Night I Sleep in the Nursery”
Exquisite, remarkable poem! ♥️